§ Mr. Matthew TaylorTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many press officers his Department has employed in each year since 1983.
§ Mr. HagueInformation for the years 1983 to 1988 is not available in the form requested. The Department of Social Security did not exist independently until August 1988.
The figures for 1988 onwards are in the table. They include the Benefits Agency, Contributions Agency and Child Support Agency where indicated.
The CA's target is to dispatch either a full reply or an informative response to 95 per cent. of all customer inquiries within 10 working days. In 1992–93, this target was surpassed, with 98.5 per cent. of responses being within this time scale.
All letters from hon. Members to the chief executive of the Child Support Agency—CSA—are now acknowledged on the day of receipt. The agency has a target to reply within 20 working days. The CSA has received 2,027 letters in a short space of time. To date, 458 have received replies. Of these, 63 per cent. were within 15 working days and 75 per cent. within 20 working days.
Letters from members of the public are usually referred to CSA centres to respond on individual cases. Their target is to acknowledge letters within two working days, which has been successful in 90 per cent. of cases, and to send a full reply within 10 working days. This has been achieved in 65 per cent. of cases.
The chief executive of the Information Technology Services Agency received only 15 letters last year. All were acknowledged within five days and 14 of the 15 replies were sent in 15 days.